


Before The Dawn

by waltzmatildah



Category: Rookie Blue, Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katherine and Gail had an agreement of sorts...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before The Dawn

  
She enters the bar with a stumble, catches the pointed tip of her stiletto heel in a rut of fractured concrete and has sudden visions of her nose meeting the scuffed hardwood floor just inside the door. But she’s hauled back to standing before she can blink. Upright and rigid in a beat. Pulse pounding high in the back of her throat.

She huffs out a sound; surprised.

Grateful. Brings her gaze up to meet the eyes of her good Samaritan. Feels her lips slide into a wide grin at the incandescent smirk she receives in return.

Rectifies her first thought; _for this is no good Samaritan_.

Not now. Perhaps not ever.

“Katherine Pierce! You _bitch_.”

If she squeals, she doesn’t care. Feels her feet fix more firmly to the floor as the fingers wrapped around her bicep loosen.

Drop away.

(Leave a mark she’d tattoo into place if she were that sort of girl.

Hint: _she’s not._ )

“Hey, who you calling bitch, _bitch?_ ”

The easy familiarity is like honey. Taffy thick.

 

 

 

Over beer and tequila shots they go over old rules. _Once more with feeling_ , she thinks and grins at the appropriate reference.

But the refresher course is redundant. They both know that. Katherine would not have returned if she had no intention of carrying through with the deal. Gail would not have stayed put for as long as she has if this moment hadn’t been dangled in front of her, carrot-like, for the past year.

There can be only one (macabre, horror story) ending to this night.

“Do you have someone in mind?”

As though she’s asking about the weather. Or the price of gas.

Punctuates the question with a shot glass of something red and cloudy. Sets it on the damp bar mat pointedly and runs her finger lazily around the rim.

Clock-wise. Then…

Anti.

Dips one nail into the liquid and brings her finger to her bottom lip. A perpetual pout, stained.

Gail now: “I bet you taste _so good_.” Nothing more than a whisper that echoes, drum-like. She itches.

 _Itches._

Waits.

Drinks.

“His name is Luke. You’ll know him when you see him.”

Katherine nods for Gail is correct. She will.

 

 

 

 _Service weapon. Knife. Noose._

 _A couple grams of something illicit from the evidence lock-up._

 _The options are never ending._

 _Infinity._

 

 

 

In the end she free-falls. Backwards so she can watch the stars retreat overhead. Figures, one stone, two birds. _Why the hell not?_

And when she wakes it’s dark. So dark. There are fingers dragging insistently through her hair. And words are being panted, desperate, into the summer-hot air that surrounds her. A steady stream of consonants and vowels on repeat.

“… my God. Wake up. Gail. _Please…_ Oh, my God. Wake up. Gail. _Please…_ Oh, my God. Wake…”

She grins. The hunger shifts something primal inside her gut and she knows then, with a clarity that is almost blinding, that Katherine did indeed know him when she saw him.

 _Oh, Luke_ , she thinks, mind racing. _Don’t be scared…_

( _It won’t hurt… much._ )

He tastes like she imagines liquid gold might. Thick and rich and gloriously metallic. He falls to silent as his lifeblood disappears down the back of her throat. Spills in crimson rivulets down her chin to meet with the tears he had shed over her.

She thinks she could drink him in forever.

She stops so that she can.

Katherine applauds the show then, slow and soft as she settles Luke’s head into her lap. Eyes closed, sleeping now. Blood loss will do that to you, and it is not the first time he’s leaked most of his.

The sudden memory jolts her: she feels inexplicable guilt for hurting him. Again. A sad regret that boils all the way to her toes.

She has been warned of this. The increase in _intensity_.

(She has never loved him more than she does in this moment.)

Katherine’s fingers slip-slide through the remains of Luke's blood on her lips. Press between her teeth insistently. She lets them play with her tongue, catch on the fangs she can’t yet control.

They have an agreement after all.

 

 

 

When Luke’s eyelids flutter open she wraps her hands around his face and compels him to forget.

Everything.

 _Her._

Drags his blood stiffened collar upright to cover the puncture wounds in his neck. Whispers apologies into the ether as she silently urges him to run.

 _Run…_

 _(but not too far…)_

He seems startled and uncertain in the aftermath, colt-like and flighty. He doesn't wear the change well. Ages and becomes more child-like in the same sideways glance.

She can _feel_ Katherine watching her with him through eyes half-lidded. A smile caught between lips that won’t quite twitch.

“You’re good at this…”

Barely concealed admiration.

“Much better than I was.”

Gail grins back. Wide and sure. Shrugs, “You sound so surprised."

 

 

 

She compels him to forget and then forces him to remember. Lets Katherine's hands crawl across the scar tissue on his chest before she makes her own move.

Pointed.

Katherine laughs, tilts her head back with a shake of her ridiculous curls. "Please tell me you don't actually _love_ him because..."

 _I don't actually love him._

(A lie.)

"I should introduce you to some friends of mine. They can tell you all about how this story will end."

She blinks.

Katherine continues. "A quick hint." Catches her fingers beneath her chin and shifts upwards until they’re eye to eye. “ _Badly._ ”

And so she nods, agrees, sinks her fangs into his wrist to deftly prove the lie she’d proffered but could never mean. Wipes her blood-stained lips with the back of her hand, feigned carelessness, and banishes him off into the night at a stagger.

Knows the memory of his blood in her veins will haunt her for eternity.

Or, at least, _until next time…_


End file.
